They did not give him a trial.
They gave him a spectacle.
By dawn, the execution square was packed with bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder, eager and vicious. Fear had turned the crowd cruel. Elowen stood at the far edge, cloaked and shaking, her hands clenched so tightly her nails cut into her palms.
She had not slept.
Every time she closed her eyes, she felt the fire again. The pull. The wrongness of it responding to her blood as if it had always known her.
Kael Morren was dragged into the square in chains.
He looked nothing like the prince carved into statues across the city. His clothes were torn, his face bruised and swollen, blood dried dark along his throat. Yet his posture was unbroken. He walked as though he still owned the ground beneath his feet.
The gallows stood waiting, runes etched deep into the wood to suppress magic. Elowen's stomach twisted as she recognized the symbols. They were not meant for execution.
They were meant for erasure.
The High Inquisitor's voice rang out, cold and precise, listing crimes that made the crowd roar louder with every word. Treason. Regicide. Forbidden magic.
Lies stacked neatly into something believable.
Elowen watched Kael's face as the accusations fell. He did not deny them. He did not plead.
When they stripped the signet ring from his finger, something dark flickered in his eyes.
"Look at them," Kael said suddenly, his voice hoarse but carrying. "They would rather see me burn than ask why the fire answered."
The Inquisitor raised a hand sharply.
"Silence."
Kael laughed.
It was a sound full of contempt and grief, sharp enough to cut. His gaze swept the crowd, then stopped.
On Elowen.
Her breath caught painfully as his eyes locked onto hers. The air between them tightened, humming with a tension she could not explain.
You feel it too, his expression said.
The executioner stepped forward.
The ground cracked.
A violent tremor split the square, throwing people from their feet. Ancient sigils flared beneath the gallows, blazing with power that should not have existed anymore.
Elowen screamed as pain tore through her veins.
The magic did not rise from Kael.
It rose from her.
Kael stared at her, shock giving way to something darker and more dangerous.
Understanding.
And in that moment, as chaos swallowed the square whole, Elowen realized the truth too late.
She was not the prince's salvation.
She was his curse.